


Krakoa Halloween

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: New Mutants (Comics), Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Beer, Diplomacy, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Challenge, Krakoa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 07:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: “Halloween, bub,” Logan says. “Never cared for it myself but kids just love it. Mutant kids too."





	Krakoa Halloween

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mortalfinlay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortalfinlay/gifts), [Brawl2099](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brawl2099/gifts).

“Indeed,” says Thor Odinson, pulling on his boots, “ye have a green and pleasant island, fit for the brave and the persecuted mutants ye shall ingather in this place. Alas, thou hast chosen to quaff imported Canadian lager when thou couldst have had the ale of Vanaheim, or at the least Bell’s of Kalamazoo.” The God of Thunder smiles and wipes the foam off his beard. He’s had at least six pints. So has Logan. Neither shows any effects yet.

“I take it your visit is over, and things have gone well,” says Ororo, holding her glass of wine, watching the sea-borne sun through the tops of the lush blue-green Krakoan trees. Rogue and Gambit lift matching glasses. Scott smiles slightly.

The five mutants, plus Thor, stand in a magnificent enclosed festival hall, part gazebo, part greenhouse; the kind of space you’d use for a wedding, but with tables and chairs and couches inside. The gazebo, in turn, stands on a table mountain, next to an open space; it’s also a takeoff and landing point for flying super-beings who want to visit the new island nation (and who can’t travel by blossom, not being mutants).

“Yes,” Odinson says, “I shall bring your message of home for all mutants, and peace, and self-defense, to the Aesir, and you need fear nothing from us, the gods who have dwelt beyond Bifrost.” Thor yawns slightly, raising Mjolnir, preparing to fly. “It hath been a long day, and I shall journey, not into mystery, but merely to my home. But first, what do I behold?”

Ororo sees Thor look down from the high place onto a lower terraced patio. School-aged children are gathering there, a few dozen of them, a few green and scaly, one iridescent, one made of shimmering energy; the rest resemble baseline human children. One’s dressed up as Ironheart, another as a hippopotamus, another as an octopus. Jubilee’s there with Shogo, and Chamber with both of them. 

“Halloween, bub,” Logan says. “Never cared for it myself but kids just love it. Mutant kids too. We’re runnin’ a school for the kids here. Even the young ones.”

Jubilee sends harmless sparkles into the air above her head, above Shogo. Wind plays with the edges of Chamber’s scarf, lit from behind. Half the kids, some only preschool-age, follow Jubilee, Shogo and Chamber off the terrace and down the steps in a chattering procession. Some carry pillowcases or canvas bags. Some hold hands. There are townhouses and round houses below the plateau; the kids who follow Jubilee head there.

The other kids stay put. One’s dressed as an eggplant, another as a giant turtle. A few haven’t dressed up at all: one’s wrapped in a puffy ski jacket, wearing a knit cap, dressed as if nights got truly cold on Krakoa, rather than pleasantly chilly. A woman with ruler-straight blond hair and knee-high boots approaches the remaining kids and leans down to speak to the shortest ones, then to the tallest. She’s got an improbably big sword, but none of the kids look afraid; it’s the opposite—they gather close to her.

“Illyana does the best of all of us,” Ororo explains quietly to Thor, “with the children who had it worst before they came to Krakoa. Children whose locales, or whose early mutations, marked them out for suffering. Children who could not feel safe even in their homes. They see Illyana and hear her and calm down.”

Rogue nods. Thor nods. Logan leaves. “On Halloween in New York, New Jersey and Missoula,” Odinson says, “human children dress up as entities that scare mortals. Ghosts and vampires and dark elves. These children have no such fearsome disguises; they are fruits and vegetables and animals and me.” (There’s one kid dressed as Thor.) “And, for some reason, a refrigerator.”

Rogue nods again. “Sweetheart, they’ve been through a lot. They don’t need to make themselves feel scared.”

“We have enough horror in our pasts,” Ororo says. “We like to keep it out of the children’s haberdashery.”

Illyana, on the terrace below them, gathers the children she leads into a half-circle and then leads them slowly away, to trick-or-treat among other mutant homes.

Logan swings wide the wooden door and carries in—with one hand!—four kegs. “Fin du Monde,” he tells Thor.

“Ragnarok!” Thor translates. “But that already took place.”

“It’s a kind of beer, bub,” Logan replies. “You asked for higher class Canadian beer and, well, I hopped in a Krakoa flower and got some. This is Fin du Monde here, from Quebec.” He pronounces it Ke-beck. “Party Animal from Ottawa. Mad Tom IPA. Happy, bub?” He smiles; his mouth twitches, as if it held a cigar.

“I shall sample them,” Thor says. He’s got his hammer next to him, but he removes his boots and looks around for a vessel. He lifts an empty one-gallon can. Snikt! Logan pierces a keg with his claws and ale spurts out. Ororo and Rogue roll their eyes.

Later that night the stars twinkle over the leafy canopy of Krakoan flora, Rogue and Gambit have eyes only for each other but (out of deference to their guest) haven’t left yet, Jubilee’s enjoying something bright pink with two straws in it, and Logan is still smashing glasses and cans with Odinson.

Illyana strides in to the festival hall, quietly, through the single wooden door. “I told them four stories, two Russian and two of my own,” she says. “They’re all asleep in the new children’s guest house. Katya’s there coding. She will hear them when they wake up.” She stops and looks up. “The rest of the candy is safe in Limbo until they ask for it, so they will not eat themselves sick tomorrow. The twins who came here from the Hungarian camps are doing much better. They love plums and Tootsie rolls. I spoke to Krakoa about creating plums.”

“No Tootsie rolls,” Logan says.

“No Tootsie rolls.”

Thor yawns, hard.

“If you go home now,” Ororo points out, “the sonic boom from your hammer on a long-distance journey could wake up those children. I can try to muffle the effects but I cannot promise to keep it quiet. Also I would not advise you to fly after having consumed so, so many beverages, although I know less than I would wish about the effects of alcohol on Asgardians.” She’s melancholy, remembering her own brief time in Asgard.

“Perhaps I shall bed down right here,” says Thor Odinson, stretching his amply muscled body out on the couch near the entrance and burping. He lays his great hammer down right where the only doors would open, blocking them so they stay closed.

The next moment he’s snoring.

Gambit raises an eyebrow. “Gambit like to go home and go to bed soon,” he says, “now dat Hallowe’en all done.” Rogue, too, raises an eyebrow.

Illyana stands up and backs up to the door, then picks up Mjolnir easily by the handle and takes it to the other side of the couch, beside the feet of the thunder god. He has, she observed, square toes.

“’Night, everyone,” she says. “Sleep well. Happy Halloween.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really like the idea that Illyana is good with kids who have been through a lot. For more on this theme, try Magik3's longer story Girls Can Be Dads: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11549106


End file.
